


No Nakedness That Compares

by PockySquirrel



Category: Power Rangers Megaforce
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 13:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8329336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PockySquirrel/pseuds/PockySquirrel
Summary: In which Super Megaforce pays homage to Star Trek's classic "The Naked Time." Gia gets zapped by a monster's disinhibiting ray. Shenanigans, stripping, and an awkward confession of love ensue.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Griddlebone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griddlebone/gifts).



The trouble began, as it so often did, with a monster attack. It was not a particularly impressive or fear-inducing monster, save for the laser cannon attached to its arm. The monster seemed every bit as aware as the Rangers that the cannon was its best attribute, and apparently had no other strategy but to fire it at them. Repeatedly.

The Rangers, unfortunately for their opponent, were very good at dodging. 

“This is starting to get really old,” Jake complained, ducking out of the way of another beam. 

“Well if you wretched Rangers would just hold still, we could get this over with,” the monster offered.

“Not on your life, ugly!” Troy retorted.

“Ugly? I'll show you ugly! X-Borgs!” 

The swarm of robotic drones that answered the monster’s summons did serve to make the fight more interesting. Dodging the laser fire while fending off X-Borgs was much more of a challenge. Gia dispatched a pair of them with a single, graceful swipe of her sword, turned to see how the others were faring, and spotted the monster preparing to fire on Emma from behind. 

“Emma! Watch out!” The Yellow Ranger shouted a warning to her teammate and sprang into action, diving toward Emma to knock her out of the way of the oncoming beam. She succeeded, but the beam missed Emma only to hit Gia head-on. The beam’s impact flung Gia across the parking lot, her morph failing as she hit the ground. Emma raced over to her as the monster gloated and crowed about its success. Taking advantage of of its distracted state, Orion leapt in and brought his trident down like a hammer onto the monster’s weapon. It howled in dismay as the cannon smoked and threw off sparks.

“At least I got one!” it growled. “And once I’ve made repairs, I’ll be back for the rest of you!”

The monster retreated and vanished in a flash of light, still cradling the busted cannon. The other Rangers powered down and congregated around Gia, who was still lying on the pavement. 

“I’m all right,” Gia reassured them, picking herself up with Emma’s assistance. “A little cooked and more than a little embarrassed, but I’ve survived worse.”

“That monster will be back,” Troy advised. “We should all get some rest so we’re ready when he decides it’s time for round two.”

“Ernie’s?” Orion suggested. 

Jake clapped him on the shoulder. “Do you even have to ask?”

***

The first indication that something was amiss was when Gia snubbed the idea of ordering her usual smoothie in favor of something decadent and drenched in chocolate. The other Rangers took note - it was unlike Gia to deviate from her routine like that - but chalked it up to her just deciding she wanted a treat after bearing the brunt of the monster’s attack. The second was when she turned on Jake when he offered to pay for her froyo.

“I can pay for my own food. This isn’t a date,” she snapped.

Proving her point, she threw her share of the bill down on the table and stormed out of the shop before Jake could respond.

“Okay...what was that all about?” Jake asked, bewildered, as he watched her leave.

“Don’t know,” Noah replied. “Maybe she got hit harder than we thought.”

“We should keep an eye on her,” Troy said. “Just in case.”

“I’ll go after her,” Emma volunteered. “If I notice anything weird, I’ll let you guys know.”

***

True to her word, Emma followed Gia home from the mall, and when the Rangers convened at school the next morning, she had nothing unusual to report. They had pretty much concluded that the Yellow Ranger’s emotions about their fight with the monster were to blame for her unusual behavior and were on their way to class when Gia strode into their view. Jake skidded to a halt, his jaw practically hitting the floor. Noah, a step behind, ran straight into him.

“Jake, what…?” Noah had only a second to be miffed at Jake’s sudden stop before he saw what Jake was seeing and was stunned into a similar state of inanimate silence.

Gia, eschewing her usual polished look, had shown up to school in a pair of shredded denim shorts, combat boots, and a t-shirt displaying the logo and concert tour dates of a metal band she had claimed to have quit listening to in eighth grade. (Although, given that the concert dates listed were no more than six months ago, that apparently had been a lie.) The shirt had also been cut to ribbons along the back and sides, and tied back together in a pattern of elaborate knots. She was very obviously not wearing a bra. The look was...provocative, to say the least.

In the moments of shocked observation that followed, the Rangers witnessed as Gia - who had never before earned a detention in her life - racked up three different disciplinary citations. The first was for her flagrant violation of the school’s dress code. The second was for sassing the teacher who commented on it. And the third was for calling a passing freshman who dared to catcall her a “misogynist fuckstick” and threatening to feed him his own testicles. 

“...Okay, something is seriously wrong here,” Troy stated the obvious.

Noah elbowed Jake in the ribs in an effort to redirect his attention. “Jake! Quit drooling on your shoes, we’ve gotta do something about this before she gets herself expelled.”

The Rangers advanced on their errant teammate, intent on cornering her and getting to the bottom of her bizarre behavior. Before they got the chance, Gia spotted Emma and her eyes lit up. She seized the Pink Ranger by the jacket, threw her against the lockers and kissed her full on the lips. With tongue. For what seemed to the bewildered Rangers like a very long time.

“Hm,” Gia purred, sounding satisfied as she came up for air. “Is it hot in here, or is it just you?”

“Actually, it’s you,” Emma said worriedly, working a hand free of Gia’s embrace to touch her forehead. “You’re burning up.”

“She’s delirious?” Noah speculated. “That would explain a lot.”

Emma shook her head, still attempting to pry Gia off of her. “Gia hasn’t been sick a day since she had her tonsils out in third grade. Something about this is weird.”

“That monster yesterday,” Noah said. “Do you think…?”

“Command Center,” Troy ordered. “Now.”

***

It took much longer than Gosei and Tensou anticipated it would to figure out what was wrong with Gia, largely because she refused to cooperate with the necessary tests. It took several attempts and a lot of cajoling from Emma, apparently the only person in the room Gia was the least bit willing to listen to in her current state, and a threat from an increasingly peeved Tensou to sedate her before they finally got her to lie still on the bio-bed long enough to run a scan. 

Once that was accomplished, however, the problem revealed itself easily. 

“It’s a virus,” Tensou announced. “An artificially engineered one, and clearly of Armada origin. Apparently the monster’s beam was designed to force you out of morphed mode and allow for introduction of the virus into the target’s body. It’s replicating itself rapidly in Gia’s brain, resulting in symptoms of elevated core body temperature, impaired judgment and disinhibition.”

“Didn’t this happen on Star Trek once?” Noah wondered aloud. 

“Nerd!” came Gia’s sing-song accusation from the bio-bed. Noah rolled his eyes.

“It did!” Orion said, snapping his fingers in recognition. “I just watched that episode. Spock cried, Sulu got a sword and ran around the ship with his shirt off…”

“Topless fencing? Now that sounds like fun…”

“Don’t give her any ideas!” Emma barked. 

By then, Gia had already summoned her sword and was halfway through wriggling out of her shirt. Emma blushed roughly the same color as her Ranger suit and quickly began pleading with Gia to keep her clothes on.

“Is my nose bleeding? I think my nose is bleeding,” Jake said, sounding dazed.

Noah facepalmed.

“Okay, so now we know what it is, how do we stop it?” Troy asked. 

“All available data indicates that the virus is tied to the monster’s life force,” Tensou replied. “Defeating it should cause Gia’s neurological state to return to normal in short order.”

“Great, so now all we have to do is wait for it to show up again, and--”

“...Guys? Where are Gia and Emma?”

The Rangers looked around at each other, and around the Command Center that was suddenly and inexplicably devoid of both the Pink and Yellow Rangers, in confusion.

One of the computer consoles blipped a polite alert, and Tensou wheeled over to investigate.

“...Oh dear,” the little robot said. 

“What is it, Tensou?”

“The Sky Ship has launched.”

“...I guess that answers our question,” Troy sighed. 

***

“Gia, you can’t just hijack the Sky Ship,” Emma protested. “We’re going to need it to fight that monster when it comes back. And besides, I’m pretty sure this counts as using the power for personal gain.”

“Aw, Emma. Just lighten up and enjoy the ride.”

The two Rangers were up in the crow’s nest of the Sky Ship, Gia grinning into the wind, her arms spread wide in clear emulation of Leonardo DiCaprio in “Titanic”. After Gia had dragged her onto the ship and launched, Emma had first headed into the control room and attempted to route the vessel back to where it belonged, only to find herself locked out of the computer. Alien virus or no alien virus, Gia was smart enough to have both foreseen and thwarted Emma’s plan. Seeing no other choice, Emma had then followed Gia up to the crow’s nest to try and reason with her. So far, that wasn’t working either. 

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“Paris,” Gia replied. “You always said you wanted to go to Paris.”

“This isn't exactly what I had in mind. Unlock the controls, Gia. We have to go back.”

“Go back?” Gia laughed, short and harsh. “Why? For school? For saving everyone's butts every time a monster attacks? Why do we have to be the responsible ones all the time? Why aren't I allowed to do something selfish for once? Something wild, and spontaneous, and romantic…”

“Romantic...Gia. Does all this have something to do with you kissing me in the hallway earlier?”

“It has everything to do with that.” 

“I thought that you and Jake...why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t I tell you? Why would I? I can’t be in love with my best friend. Do you know how many ways that can go wrong? What if you didn’t feel the same way and things got weird? What if we broke up and hated each other? What if it messed up the team? I shouldn’t even be telling you now. If it wasn’t for this...stupid monster…”

Gia’s tone was frenetic, and Emma was startled to see tears in her eyes. Gia didn’t cry. She just didn’t. They had been friends since they were small, and Emma had never seen this before. She was afraid of these feelings, Emma realized, and under the monster’s influence powerless to stop herself from expressing them.

“Kiss me again,” Emma suggested. 

Gia did so, with enthusiasm.

Emma pulled back, and looked her in the eyes.

“I promise, I’m not going anywhere. And we’re going to figure this out, together. But we need to get you back to normal first. Now will you please turn the ship around?”

Gia hesitated. Emma’s morpher beeped.

“Emma?” Noah’s voice, tinny through the small speaker. “We could really use that megazord right about now…”

Emma glanced down at the device, then back up at Gia, her eyes pleading. 

Gia released a small huff of disappointment and frustration and started down the ladder back to the ship. 

Emma breathed a sigh of relief and picked up her morpher. “We’re on our way.”

***

The ensuing battle began with Troy and the other Rangers leaping into the no-longer-AWOL megazord to find Gia in Troy’s seat and stubbornly refusing to relinquish the red controls. 

“I'm driving. This is personal,” she insisted.

“Just go with it,” Emma suggested.

At that point, Troy was grateful enough to have the megazord back at all, and to finally be able to provide Orion with some much-needed backup, that he just shrugged and took his place at Gia’s spot in the cockpit. 

As it turned out, letting Gia pilot the mech in her condition might not have been the best idea. Her maneuvering led to Noah getting motion sickness and Tensou yelling in a panic at them over the comm about various systems that had overloaded and would need to be repaired. But they beat the monster, to everyone’s relief. And then, as her final coup d’grace, Gia turned the megazord to stand facing the last known coordinates of the Armada flagship, raised its arm, and flipped Prince Vekar the bird in spectacular fashion. Troy scrambled at the controls to override before the whole city had a chance to see the giant mech’s obscene gesture, while Jake laughed hysterically and Noah continued his concerted effort to avoid vomiting in his helmet. 

As the commotion died down, Gia’s morph failed and she slumped over against the control panel. Emma left her seat and hurried to her side.

“Gia?” she asked cautiously. “Are you okay?”

“Ugh,” Gia groaned in response. “My head hurts and I have the sinking feeling that I just made a complete fool of myself. This must be what a hangover feels like.”

Emma powered down and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll figure it out together, remember? Like I promised.”

Gia smiled and took her hand.


End file.
